How Indigo decides to send a stock-out alert, and how we check it

2026-11-05 · Indigo team, Locus Korea

Indigo Agent reads stock and orders from warehouse and store systems and sends stock-out and missing-tracking alerts to team messengers. This page records what it reads, which alerts go out and when, and how we check whether an alert was right. We update this page when the rules change.

1. What it reads

• Available stock per product, daily shipped (sold) units, scheduled and completed receipts, and whether tracking numbers are registered.
• It uses a read-only key. It has no function that changes orders or stock.
• Sabangnet Fulfillment is read about every 15 minutes; stores, OMS and ERP about every hour; files when you upload them; Google Sheets when the sheet changes. A missed run is picked up on the next one.

2. Connection status (2026-11-05)

Of the 430 systems on our list, 211 have connector code.

Systems without a connector can start with an Excel or CSV file.

3. Already out of stock is a fact; stock-out soon is an estimate

Indigo treats these two differently.

• Already out of stock: the warehouse actually returned 0 available for the product. It is an observed fact, so the alert goes out right away.
• Stock-out soon: days left, calculated as current stock divided by recent average daily shipments. It depends on future sales and receipts, so it is shown with the numbers behind it and marked as an estimate.

At centers that ship far less on weekends, calendar-day averages can make Mondays look like spikes and weekends look like drops. We are testing a business-day calculation; it is not in the production rules yet.

4. How alerts are sent because of this

These are the rules for shipper chat rooms connected through Sabangnet Fulfillment (2026-11-05). Other systems have no production record yet.

• During the day (08:40–21:00): only "already out of stock" and "tracking missing for over 24 hours". "Already out of stock" is sent only when the warehouse actually reported 0 available, the product sold in the last 7 days, and the stock reading is less than 30 minutes old. The same item is sent once a day at most.
• Every day at 08:30: yesterday's closing numbers and products to check. Days left are written with the numbers behind them and marked as an estimate, for example "42 available · 18 a day on average · about 2.3 days (estimate)".
• Predictions such as "out of stock within 2 days" are not sent in real time. They are estimates, and we think they are better reviewed together in the morning report.
• Locus Korea's internal operations room is checked by staff every day, so it still gets stock-out-soon alerts in real time.

5. How we check whether an alert was right

• A decision on the morning of day D uses only data up to day D−1. Whether it was right is judged from the actual sales and stock that followed.
• From 2026-11-06, every morning we score the previous day's decisions against daily stock snapshots, counting decisions scored, decisions that were right, and cases refilled by a receipt in between.
• If the person who got the alert pulled a delivery forward and avoided the stock-out, that looks the same as a wrong alert. Cases refilled by a receipt are therefore kept apart from right/wrong scoring.
• We replay past data the same way to choose thresholds, and use the results internally.

Limits

• Our records so far come from one company's fulfillment centers (Locus Korea) and 32 shippers. There is no evidence that other industries or warehouses would see the same results.
• Stock history only exists from the 2026-11-04 snapshot. Earlier stock was rebuilt by subtracting sales and receipts backwards, so it carries some error.
• Late-shipment alerts could not be validated because past order and shipping timestamps were not kept.

Try the stock-out calculator with Excel, no sign-up · About Indigo Agent

Contact: cs@locuskorea.kr